It's found inside an arcade joystick to limit the movement of the stick to certain angles (ie. Vertical only, Horizontal only, 4 way, 8 way) and also to stop the full motion of the stick so it doesn't damage the button circuitry inside. (Didn't get a pic cause WZ was hovering around me when I opened up the stick) The gate above is square shaped and pretty much allow movements to all eight main directions (up, down, left, right and the diagonals) It's a very common gate that you find in most sticks. The gate below is a bit uncommon.

It's an octagon shaped gate. While you can also move in all 8 directions with this gate, the main difference is that the stick will pretty much drop into each direction so the player can be more aware that he has pushed into a direction properly.

I wonder if a simple piece of plastic like this can help me do hadokens better when I'm on the left?

Ahhh.. the new Prince Of Persia : The Forgotten Sands. It's still the same POP game with lots of cool jumping and platforming sequences. But the fighting.. *gah*... the fighting... the first time I saw 20 sand creatures pop up all over me and I just kill them but flailing my sword around madly I remembered the quote of the developer in one of the trailers. "We wanted to make fighting more exciting again!" Gheeezz.. trying to make it Prince Of Persia Musuo DOESN'T make fighting better!

And of course, the main question I ask myself whenever I play any PoP game except for the previous Prince Of Persia 2008 is how the HECK did they get around BEFORE the city was destoyed and in ruins? The whole architecture and design of the place DOESN'T FUNCTION in the normal sense. You have pressure plates on the walls, monkey bar switches 2 stories high that needs an off the wall jump to work. It makes it feel as if EVERYONE in the PoP universe can do what you do.

In the 2008 PoP you can see that the city is in ruins, and the switches and stuff were generally in proper logical places. And when asked "How DID you get around this place?" Elika tells you the obvious that before the city was decayed and ruined there were actual walkways and paths.

So.. Super Street Fighter IV was released a few days ago and I've been enjoying a LOT of online matches. The match finding system is much improved about paring people with proper ping levels. Of course when you prefer connection speed instead of similar skill... The fights can get quite interesting.

While playing co-op in Splinter Cell:Conviction with my friend I realized something.

When you're knocked out, a bleed out timer starts where your friend needs to come and basically shock you back to working condition. While you're bleeding out you're not out of the game yet, you can still get up and accurately pop headshots into nearby goons. So can someone answer me this?

If I have enough strength to get up, and I can still focus enough to pop MULTIPLE headshots into the nearby enemies... Why the bloody hell can't I just shock myself back to health?

Here's some things which I realized after playing the role of bootleg recorder during yesterday's Video Games Live concert.

First of all, if you want to make a good recording, you need to prepare a proper setup for your gear. Great thing about VGL was that I didn't need to hide my gear so I just had to make sure I mounted my camera properly. Because I had a Gorillapod I could do this

The camera and I basically shared the same eye level, so from a camera angle aspect I got a pretty good one. Here's a sample of the resulting video.

From the video I learned the remaining tricks of being a good bootlegger

If you can ensure the camera position doesn't change like what I'm doing, then leave the camera on MANUAL FOCUS so it doesn't focus hunt in the middle of the show. It's not like the screen will move or anything.

If your intent is to bootleg, don't go to the show with someone you're likely to talk to. :P

So I’ve been playing Bioshock 2 for a while and while I’m enjoying the game I feel that there’s something I just HAVE to get off my chest.

For a big daddy, I die WAY TOO EASILY! All it takes to kill me is about 3 solid clubs to the head and I’m back in the Vitachamber. While you might say that it’s because you play as the very first big daddy therefore as a prototype you’re weaker and such but let me remind you that you’re still wearing the Big Daddy Deep Sea Diving Helmet. Which I’d think would be able to withstand a few blows from lead pipes.

And for that matter, how the heck does the characther eat, drink and smoke all the health items? Is there a feeding tube somewhere which we can’t see?

The final rant is that even though we can swing a drill the size of our helmet like a simple bat, this particular act would dictate that Big Daddy is stronger than the average man. And yet when would smash the drill into a splicer’s head we have to club them a couple of times compared to just once and seeing their head’s explode due to being bludgeoned by a heavy object?

I find there can only be one reason for this to happen, why the splicers can withstand so much pounding to their heads by a big giant drill.

They’ve got BETTER HELMETS! I hope I can find out who their supplier is.

Here's my list of why Bayonetta is the BEST ACTION GAME I'VE TOTALLY ENJOYED in a while.

Within 1 minutes of starting a new game you are kicking ass already, no lengthy intro cutscene to sit through, no waiting, the game let's you get it out of your system first BEFOREshowing you the intro. For the first few minutes of the game that you'll experience in the game will be a sampling of the excitment you come to feel in game.

The FULL combo move list is already available from the start of the game, extra singular moves are purchased, but I keep forgetting to use them. Bayonetta also sports the smoothest combo system I've used in an action game.

INSTA-DODGE! One press of the dodge button and Bayonetta cancels out of pretty much ANYTHING and dodges out of an oncoming attack. Dodge at the right time and you get bullet time mode to cause extra damage. I LIKE games that reward my reflexes!

Practice Mode! So you died and the game needs to reload the check point, would you like to practice your moves before facing the enemy that killed you? The loading screen is the practice mode, hit the BACK button and you can keep practicing your moves till you feel ready to take on the world.

Encourage not Frustrate. Whenever you die in Bayonetta and a checkpoint is loaded, you don't get back the health level you were at when the checkpoint was saved. you get back FULL HEALTH! A silver of life left when you got slaugthered by a horde? Don't worry you'll reload with full health? The trade off? Your game rating pretty much dive bombs. But... instead of hurling my controller at the TV in frustration everytime I die, I'm just angry at not being good enough to survive! And since I get full health on a reload, it means I have a higher chance of making it through the game. It is this system that makes me want to replay the game to get better scores.

If you're a fan of Action games like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden there's no reason NOT to pick this one up!

I used to LOVE Nintendo... I absolutely adored them because they promised me hours of fun on well designed games. Now as they themselves mentioned, it seems like the hardcore gamer is not their target market anymore. And so... I have a dust collecting paperweight of a Wii sitting under my TV.

So there I was, ready to begin the one on one with what many in the LowYat.Net Xbox forums called the most skilled Guile player. The prefight jabs were already thrown and the match was about to begin when... I got disconnected from the match. I was about to accept the invite back to the match when I looked at WZ who was sitting beside me watching me play.

I noticed that there was a bulge at the bottom of his pants, weird because we were toilet trainning him so he wasn't wearing any diapers (he's on the if he pees his pants daddy spanks him trainning regime :P) then I realized what that bulge was!

Before I could even reach him to sweep him off his feet, WZ stood up and from out his pant leg fell... a chunky steaming hot log of a poop. As I picked WZ up I could see the 360 notification dialog informing me of the match invite. But alas... that match will have to be decided some other time.

That was definitely an experience that only fathers who game can have, leaving a match with the child as the excuse.

The father is also the only one who will remember that his son pooped on his gaming spot in front of the TV.